MADISON – Just hours after Governor Tony Evers had signed an executive order Monday, April 6 postponing Tuesday’s Wisconsin primary election until June 9th due to concerns over the spread of COVID-19 (Coronavirus), the Wisconsin State Supreme court overturned the governor’s order allowing in-person voting to proceed as planned.

The State Supreme Court voted 4-2, with Justice Daniel Kelley, who is on the ballot, abstaining, to overide the governor’s action and re-instate Tuesday’s scheduled primary.

Ironically, just a short time later, the US Supreme Court, on a 5-4 vote, reversed a lower court ruling that had given state voters an extra 6 days, until Monday, April 13, to turn in their absentee ballots. All absentee ballots must now be postmarked by April 7th.

Earlier Monday, Gov. Evers, in the absence of legislative action, signed Executive Order #74, suspending in-person voting for the April 7 spring election, moving in-person voting to June 9, 2020.

The order had also directed the Legislature to meet in special session on Tues., April 7, 2020 to address the election date. If the Legislature did not enact legislation to change the new election date, in-person voting would hav e occurred on June 9, 2020.

As of Monday, 550,000 of the estimated 1.3 million absentee ballots had not been returned.